Friday, November 11, 2016

Take Back The Narrative

This is a time for action, for words of fire, for all of us
thinking and acting together to find a way out of no way.

I’ve been in a rage. I’ve been crying and trembling, walking
around in a daze. I’ve been grieving. Like everybody else I know. I have scrolled
through Facebook, taking in the love, the anguish, the insight, the rage, the
hope.

I washed and conditioned my hair with hot oil. I biked for
two hours up into the hills.

I scrolled around obsessively for the answers, hoping to
find the reasons for this tragedy, the answers to a nightmare. Finally, I
realized what I was really looking for in every article and post was the miracle that would make it all
better. I realized I wasn’t going to find the miracle answers. I’d have to make
the answers, conjure miracles with all of my communities, with the majority of the
electorate who voted for Hillary or someone other than Trump.

I wrote and called my
friends. My friends called to check on me. Friends from Germany sent emails. I received
meditations, dances, images for self-care.

I read eloquent essays and personal stories. I did not feel
alone in my grief.

I resisted feeling that what I do is pointless. I am on
sabbatical and two of my students emailed, asking if I was all right. They said
they missed me and the classes I teach—where they and other students can feel safe
as they challenge their minds and spirits, as they learn how to invent the
future they want. I cried reading their note. How did they know this was just
what I needed?

I offered love and support wherever I could. Timmi Duchamp asked me
to write this blog. I agreed.

And remember—the majority of the electorate voted for Hillary
or someone other than Trump. Hillary won the popular vote. Let’s get a hold of
the narrative.

Many artists wondered if what they do is significant—particularly in the face of the horror, why write
magic or science fiction? Who wants to read our stories?

We, the people, your communities, we need your stories, your music, your insights, your
dances, your films! Artists must not feel that what they do is insignificant.

Folks said they were too old for this and then talked about
all they were going to do! So, offer shelter, be a shield, organize, fight like
hell, write a book, have everybody’s back like they have yours. Do whatever you can do and go
ahead and be cranky and too old for this shit!

I also saw folks saying Clinton failed to energize Black
folks, Latinx, and the young (CNN for example.) And there have been numerous complaint articles and outrage posts at the white
woman who voted for Trump rather than Hillary.

They (those who are not the majority of the electorate who voted for Hillary or
someone other than Trump) want us fussing and cussing and blaming the black
people who didn’t show up for Hillary like they did for Obama, or the college
educated white women who voted for a racist/misogynist who’d like to grab their
pussy if its cute, or the Latinax who voted more for xenophobe Trump than they
did for Romney, or for the gay Republicans for whatever they are doing. All the
while giving a pass to the white men (college educated or not) who voted for a
white supremacist narcissist whose followers chant I hate Muslims, kill the
bitch, fuck the nigger, gas the Jews.

This is the same pass too many have been giving to Trump all
along: he’s racist, but you can hold your nose and vote for him
because he’ll give us jobs. He hates women, Mexicans, disabled people, queers,
Jews—but that’s not important, ‘cause he’ll fix the economy.

Don’t be derailed. Don’t be distracted. Let’s control the
narrative.

We should expect as much from the (grown ass) white men who
voted for Trump as we do from everyone else. Grown ass white men shouldn’t get
an academy award for being reasonable or a pass when they’re pushing their
horror as usual reality down our throats.

We don’t have time to waste or people to waste. We can’t
throw away the black folks who did vote for Hillary because of the black folks
who didn’t! Ditto the white women and the young people who voted for Hillary.

We need to do all those things that everybody has be writing
and talking about together.

We have to fight for the women in the Senate, together.

We have to support each other’s work together.

We have to stand up to lies together.

We need to be shields for whomever we can, together.

We need to take back the narrative together.

Each of us is put here in this time and this
place to personally decide the future of humankind. Did you think the Creator
would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger? Know that
you yourself are essential to this world. Understand both the blessing and the
burden of that. You yourself are desperately needed to save the soul of this
world. Did you think you were put here for something less?

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Welcome! This blog is a forum for discussing all things Aqueductian. Conversation, of course, is one of our themes, derived from the notion of feminist sf as a conversation, as explored in "For a Genealogy of Feminist SF: Reflections on Women, Feminism, and Science Fiction, 1818-1960" (reprinted in The Grand Conversation, Vol. 1 of the Conversation Pieces series and available online as an essay titled "That Only A Feminist"). So please do comment freely and often, and if you're interested in making a guest post, write to conversation@aqueductpress.com.